head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs agent-browser-cli
Lightpanda has 36,804 GitHub stars, 1,775 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-browser-cli has 636 stars, 73 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 5,687% (36,804 vs 636 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; agent-browser-cli is written in Rust under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, agent-browser-cli 11%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser-automation, cdp), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Lightpanda | agent-browser-cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 636 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-21 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 73 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick agent-browser-cli if
- You want the agent-browser-cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and agent-browser-cli fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda Browser The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation. Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig.   Benchmarks Requesting 933 real web pages over the network on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details. Quick start Install Package Managers Latest nightly from Homebrew: Latest nightly from Arch Linux User Repository: Download from the nightly builds You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux and MacOS for both x86 64 and aarch64. For Linux Verify the binary before running anything: Linux aarch64 is also available…
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About agent-browser-cli
agent browser cli 面向 Agent 的浏览器感知与控制 CLI，把真实 Chrome 会话变成可复用的标签页扫描、页面 JS、Cookie、CDP 和截图能力。 浏览器感知 · 页面控制 · Chrome 登录态复用 · CDP · 条件等待 · Agent Skill 集成 AI 一句话安装 · 手动安装 · Chrome 扩展 · 更新 · 更新日志 · 卸载 · 友情链接 中文 English agent browser cli 是一个面向 Agent 的浏览器感知与控制工具。它通过 Chrome 扩展连接用户真实浏览器，保留登录态和 Cookie，提供标签页扫描、页面 JS 执行、Cookie 读取、CDP 控制、截图、文件上传、下拉框点击等能力。 本项目不是 Selenium / Playwright。它更适合在已有浏览器会话中辅助 Agent 精确读取页面和执行操作。 项目信息 当前版本： 0.3.5 支持平台：Windows（包括 WSL）/ Mac / Linux 浏览器：Chrome，需加载拓展 assets/tmwd cdp bridge Linux 支持前提：本机 Chrome / Chromium 需要支持安装扩展 WSL 支持前提：需使用 WSL 2.0.0+ ，并建议在 Windows 11 22H2+ 下启用 networkingMode=mirrored ，以便 WSL…
read the full agent-browser-cli overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or agent-browser-cli more popular?
Lightpanda has 36,804 GitHub stars and agent-browser-cli has 636. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and agent-browser-cli free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and agent-browser-cli under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and agent-browser-cli?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and agent-browser-cli in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightpanda or agent-browser-cli?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (36,804 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose agent-browser-cli if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.